Eloquent and interesting

His absorbing account of this Yemeni education offers a window on a closed world: one that importantly, notes the beauty to be found in Islam as much as the lunacy of some of its adherents

A clear-sighted and subversive book about a country in the news

This book succeeds, most notably in his depiction of the under-reported tragedy being played out in European and American cities where too few immigrants from this region have adapted well, and far too many children have failed to assimilate it all

Desmond Tutu is full of courage and faith in humanity's capacity for good...always the voice of inspiration

"This book is a manual for life, read it now, so later you won't have to stand in line and tell Aunt Dumb Dumb you're sorry.

An elegantly written, scrupulously researched and original study

A wonderfully moving and subtle new biography - the reading of the assassination in the north transept of the cathedral is almost unbearably intense and brings tears to one's eye

Thoroughly researched. . . an impressive array of contemporary accounts

The most accessible Life of Thomas Becket to be published in recent years

The subject matter - gloomy, perhaps, in other hands - shines in Thubron's beautiful prose

Thubron's descriptive writing is as dazzling as the scenery. His scholarship on the area's religious and political history is enthralling

It could have been written for radio in how vividly it makes you see pictures, hear sounds, notice the worn trainers on the man who joined them for part of the trek, catch the tap of the sherpa's staff. It sounds like a conversation with the listener's imagination

With a landscape that easily provokes superlatives or just stupefied wonder, and a culture steeped in esoteric beliefs, Tibet needs a writer of Thubron's caliber to do it justice

He describes both landscapes and humans in sharp poetic detail and provides a deceptively simple account of both the inner and outer journey.

In an elegiac mood and powerful prose. Thubron considers the significance of his journey, the poetry and politics of the region, and the bleak landscapes that reflect solitude

An utterly absorbing read... An elegiac meditation on life, death, family and mortality. Beautiful

Thubron is an impressive prose stylist..he writes with great elegiac precision

It's a pleasure to follow Colin Thubron's hesitant pilgrimage ... the last of the great post-war British travel writers

Amid the desolation there is a beauty that comes not only from the things that Thubron chooses to describe but from the way in which he describes them

What Thubron provides in his inimitable way is an account of both fellow pilgrimsand himself

Wonderfully poetic tale

Colin Thurbron's ode to a mystical mountain in Tibet... Not to be missed

This latest travelogue confirms Colin Thubron as one of the greatest contemporary travel writers

I am haunted by its spare simplicity and beauty

His measures prose matches the region's stark beauty. Refreshing

haunting and profound

This pure artist of the voyage looks back backwards and within, to his late mother and his childhood, as well as up to the Himalayan peaks and peoples that he sumptuously evokes

[An] elegiac account of high-altitude piety...he's still one of the best in the business

An absolutely terrific book. Thubron has perfect pitch. He uses the minimum of words to maximum effect. His descriptions are fresh and acute and he can convey atmosphere and emotion on the head of a pin. The journey to Mount Kailash is enthralling and he keeps the reader right beside him every inch of the way

Punchy, evocative... It is a dangerous journey up to 18,000ft, where Thubron, who is mourning his mother, is hit by altitude sickness

Abook which beautifully describes one man's experience of loss and familial love

[Thubron] skilfully balances his poetic descriptions of the land and its subtle, shifting colours with human stuff - observations of his fellow travellers, encounters and personal anecdotes, snippets of history and rather interesting accounts of Tantric Buddhism, with its swirling pantheon of blue-faced demons, bodhisattvas, gods and goddesses... Thubron has recently buried his last living relative and his grieving gives depth and weight to his meditations on Tibetan Buddhism

This is a superb book from a writer who over his lifetime has shown himself to be our finest modern chronicler of Asia

The keenest-eyed, least self-absorbed, of literary travellers, Colin Thubron writes with a pin-point elegance and economy that directs your gaze to a place and its people, rather than to the author's foibles... His tales of seekers, refugees and mystics richly sketch the background of Tibetan history and Buddhist belief. Above all, his lean and supple prose draws meaning and moment from every encounter. "To the pilgrims, there are no mute stones" - and not to their ultra-observant companion

His book is interspersed with poignant passages about his late parents and sister, who died in an avalanche when he was 23. Thubron also reveals some cultural surprises.

Making a lyrical hymn out of travel writing, Thubron's evocative pilgrimage is typically poised yet, triggered by the death of his mother, also unusually personal

Thubron's writing is as spectacular as his surroundings so he therefore makes you feel as though you are treading the path with him

[Thubron] doesn't just walk into the higher reaches of the Himalyas but explores his own reaches of eternity as well as the more outer regions of Buddhism and Hinduism

Deploying a poetic blend of travel and memoir, Thubron uses Buddhism to inform reflections on the cycles of life and the meaning of suffering... it is an elegy for everything that makes us human

Reflections of the wheel of life are sensitively handled and the writing is as beautiful as ever

A new Travel Thubron is always to be savoured, but there was something valedictory and elegiac about this